A significant and robust market exists for marketing digital advertisements on various types of personal computing devices, like computers (desktop and laptop), mobile phones and tablets, and traditional browser-based devices operated by a consumer who is the user of the device. Conventional advertisement tracking systems and methods which were built for personal devices rely on device identification systems and methods to create a record in buyer advertising systems representing showing a digital advertisement (“ad”) to a consumer (the “impression”), and on which personal device a consumer, who was exposed to the impression, took some action (the “event”) in response to the impression (e.g., visiting a website, making an online purchase, calling a telephone number in response to the advertisement, to name a few.). In many cases, the impression and event occur on the same personal device, with a unique identifier such as a cookie or device ID serving as the basis for linking the impression and event on that device. In other cases, the impression and event occur on different personal devices that are used by the same consumer (or an associated consumer, like a family member) and linked by a common identifying signal across devices (e.g., a hashed login ID used on both devices) that unified the device-specific identifiers. Thus, conventional tracking systems allow buying parties to automatically track impressions delivered on personal devices (to measure campaign delivery) and link impressions to events occurring on personal devices (to measure campaign performance), for a particular advertisement and campaign.
At the same time, the same or related digital advertisements (e.g., part of the same campaign) may be placed in other network-connected digital display systems (such as the outdoor display 10 illustrated in FIG. 1, as discussed below) which are not personal computing devices (“non-personal devices”). The defining characteristic of personal devices is that they are used by only one individual (or some very small number of individuals, e.g., in a household) who regularly use the device, and therefore digital advertisements shown on these devices are seen only by the individual(s) in question. By contrast, digital advertisements shown on non-personal devices are generally seen by many different people, who have no unique or persistent association with those devices. In addition, with personal devices, the events (such as purchases, etc.) that occur in response to an impression usually occur on the same personal device as the impression, or on another device that can be associated to the same user (or associated users) by the means described above. By contrast, events occurring in response to an impression on a non-personal device usually occur on a different device, and most commonly a personal device (e.g., using a personal device such as a mobile phone to visit a website, scan a QR code, or text a number that is displayed in the advertisement, to name a few). For these reasons, conventional identification and tracking systems and methods (e.g., using cookies and device IDs) to link impressions and events do not work.
These technical differences create technological barriers to using the same integrated methods and systems used in the conventional art to track impressions and events (e.g., so-called ad serving systems, demand-side platforms, etc.) for digital advertisements on personal devices, from being used to track impressions and events for digital advertisements on non-personal devices.
What is needed is an improved system and method by which buyers of digital advertising can place the digital advertisements in both personal devices and non-personal devices, while still allowing dynamic, real-time tracking of the delivery and performance of the digital advertisements as placed in each type of device.